# Steam Live Player Count Ranker (`saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker`) Actor

Compare live concurrent player counts across multiple Steam games in one run - real-time popularity, ranked side by side.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/saint\_person/steam-player-count-ranker.md
- **Developed by:** [saint person](https://apify.com/saint_person) (community)
- **Categories:** Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## 🎮 Steam Player Count Ranker

> 🚀 **Compare live concurrent player counts across Steam games in one run.** No single-game lookup - a side-by-side popularity snapshot.

> 🕒 **Last updated:** 2026-07-11 · 📊 **4 fields** per game · Built on Steam's official public API (no key)

> 🎁 **Try it free:** the free Apify plan returns up to **10 results per run** - enough to see the output quality. Any paid Apify plan unlocks full-size runs.

Give it a list of Steam App IDs and it pulls each game's live concurrent player count from Steam's own API, all in one run - so you can see Counter-Strike 2 at 645K players next to Dota 2 at 418K and PUBG at 107K, instead of checking each Steam Charts page separately.

| 🎯 Target Audience | 💡 Primary Use Cases |
| --- | --- |
| Game journalists, esports analysts, indie devs, gaming content creators | Competitive-landscape research, launch-day tracking, market research, content ideas |

***

### 📋 What this Actor does

- Fetches live concurrent player counts for any list of Steam App IDs
- Resolves well-known App IDs to real game names automatically
- Returns one row per game with a timestamp, ready to sort or chart
- Runs in one pass - no manual page-by-page checking

> 💡 **Why it matters:** Steam Charts and the Steam store only show one game at a time. This gives you a ranked table across as many games as you want, in one API call.

***

### 🎬 Full demo

🚧 Video walkthrough coming soon - the Quick Start below takes under 3 minutes end to end.

***

### ⚙️ Input

| Input | Type | Default | Behavior |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `appIds` | string | (prefilled) | Comma-separated Steam App IDs, up to 20 |

**Example: Battle royale showdown**

```json
{ "appIds": "578080, 1172470, 730" }
```

**Example: Story-driven hits**

```json
{ "appIds": "1086940, 1245620, 1091500, 292030" }
```

> ⚠️ **Good to know:** find any game's App ID in its store URL: `store.steampowered.com/app/<id>`.

***

### 📊 Output

Each game returns **4 fields**. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, or consume via the Apify API.

#### 🧾 Schema

| Field | Type | Example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| appId | integer | 730 |
| gameName | string | Counter-Strike 2 |
| currentPlayers | integer | 645749 |
| generatedAt | string | 2026-07-11T00:04:30Z |

#### 📦 Sample record

```json
{"appId":730,"gameName":"Counter-Strike 2","currentPlayers":645749,"generatedAt":"2026-07-11T00:04:30Z"}
```

***

### ✨ Why choose this Actor

| | Capability |
| --- | --- |
| 🏆 | **Side-by-side, not one at a time.** Up to 20 games ranked in a single run. |
| ⚡ | **Built on Steam's official API.** Free, no key - stable and durable. |
| 🎮 | **Real game names.** Built-in lookup for major titles, not raw App IDs. |
| 🔁 | **Automatic retries.** Transient failures retry with backoff. |
| 💳 | **Pay per result.** No subscription. A 5-game run costs about $0.03. |

> 📊 Turns 5 manual Steam Charts checks into 1 ranked table.

***

### 📈 How it compares to alternatives

| Approach | Cost | Coverage | Refresh | Setup |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **⭐ Steam Player Count Ranker** *(this Actor)* | $5 free credit, then pay-per-use | Any game, up to 20 per run | **Live per run** | ⚡ 2 min |
| SteamCharts.com manually | Free | One game at a time | Live | 🐢 Manual, one by one |
| Steam store page | Free | One game, no history | Live | 🐢 No cross-game comparison |
| Manual copy-paste | Free | Current session only | One-shot | 🐢 Hours of clicking |

Pick this Actor when you want a ranked, multi-game player-count view without checking each one individually.

***

### 🚀 How to use

1. 📝 **Sign up.** Create a free Apify account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 **Open the Actor.** Go to the Steam Player Count Ranker page on the Apify Store.
3. ✏️ **Set your input.** List your App IDs - or just press Start, the prefilled example works.
4. 🚀 **Run it.** Watch results stream into the Dataset tab.
5. 📥 **Download.** Grab results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML - or pipe them anywhere via the Apify API.

> ⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: **3-5 minutes.** No coding required.

***

### 💼 Business use cases

- **Game journalists:** back a "biggest games right now" story with real numbers.
- **Esports analysts:** track player counts around tournament launches.
- **Indie devs:** benchmark your game's audience against genre leaders.
- **Content creators:** find which games are trending for video/stream ideas.

***

### 🌟 Beyond business use cases

- 🎓 **Research & academia** - gaming-industry and engagement studies.
- 🎨 **Personal & creative** - gaming newsletter or YouTube content research.
- 🤝 **Non-profit & civic** - digital-wellbeing and gaming-trend awareness research.
- 🧪 **Experimentation** - prototype a gaming-analytics dashboard on real data.

***

### 🔌 Automating Steam Player Count Ranker

**Node.js** (`apify-client` on NPM):

```javascript
const { ApifyClient } = require('apify-client');
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker').call({ appIds: "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440" });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
```

**Python** (`apify-client` on PyPI):

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker').call(run_input={"appIds": "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440"})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
```

📚 [Full Apify API documentation](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2)

[Apify Schedules](https://docs.apify.com/platform/schedules) triggers this Actor on any cron interval - hourly for a standing player-count watch.

***

### 🧠 Use via MCP (for AI agents)

Steam Player Count Ranker is directly callable by any MCP-compatible AI agent (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and others) through Apify's hosted MCP server - no custom integration code needed.

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/sse?actors=saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}
```

Once connected, just ask your agent something like: *"Use the Steam Player Count Ranker Actor to tell me which of these games has the most players right now."*

📚 [Apify MCP server docs](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp)

***

### 🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this Actor

- 💬 [**ChatGPT**](https://chat.openai.com/?q=How%20do%20I%20use%20the%20Steam%20Player%20Count%20Ranker%20on%20Apify%3F)
- 🧠 [**Claude**](https://claude.ai/new?q=How%20do%20I%20use%20the%20Steam%20Player%20Count%20Ranker%20on%20Apify%3F)
- 🔍 [**Perplexity**](https://perplexity.ai/search?q=How%20do%20I%20use%20the%20Steam%20Player%20Count%20Ranker%20on%20Apify%3F)

***

### ❓ Frequently Asked Questions

#### 🧩 How does it work?

It calls Steam's official live-player-count endpoint once per App ID you list, then returns one row per game.

#### Why player count and not review scores or sales?

Live player count is public, real-time, and free via Steam's own API - reviews and sales figures require scraping or aren't public at all.

#### What if I list an App ID this Actor doesn't recognize?

It still returns the live player count, labeled as "App {id}" instead of a name.

#### ⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run this Actor on any cron interval.

#### ⚖️ Is this data legal to collect?

This Actor only collects data that is publicly accessible via Steam's free API. No login, no bypass of access controls.

#### 💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs.

#### 🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Transient errors retry automatically with backoff. If a run still fails, the log explains exactly why.

#### 🆘 What if I need help?

Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.

***

### 🔌 Integrate with any app

- [**Zapier**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/zapier)
- [**Make**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/make)
- [**n8n**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations)
- [**Google Sheets**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/drive)
- [**Slack**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/slack)
- [**Gmail**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/gmail)
- [**Webhooks**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/webhooks)
- [**MCP**](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp)

***

### 🔗 Recommended Actors

Pairs well with [Chess Leaderboard Comparator](https://apify.com/saint_person/lichess-leaderboard-comparator) for cross-platform gaming-popularity comparisons.

> 💡 **Pro tip:** browse the complete [saint\_person collection](https://apify.com/saint_person) for more tools like this.

***

### 🆘 Help & custom requests

- 🐛 **Something not working?** Open an issue on this Actor's **Issues tab**.
- 🛠️ **Need a custom feature or a different data source?** Open an issue describing what you need.

***

> **⚠️ Disclaimer:** this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Valve or Steam. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available data is collected.

# Actor input Schema

## `appIds` (type: `string`):

Comma-separated Steam App IDs to compare (up to 20), e.g. '730, 570, 578080' (CS2, Dota 2, PUBG). Find an App ID in any store.steampowered.com/app/<id> URL. Works out of the box with the prefilled example.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "appIds": "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440"
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "appIds": "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "appIds": "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "appIds": "730, 570, 578080, 1172470, 440"
}' |
apify call saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=saint_person/steam-player-count-ranker",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/c831hLCrpMjSfSex9/builds/MJeDdIMkXiHVEIGu4/openapi.json